While the Carolina Hurricanes season ended in disappointment, the team had a lot to be proud of. Now in the offseason, tough decisions will be made, and management will work to put the team in a place to succeed next season. In the meantime, we will take a look back at individual players’ seasons and see how they did. For the Carolina Hurricanes offseason grades, today we look at Brett Pesce.
Carolina Hurricanes Offseason Grade: Brett Pesce
Brett Pesce has been one of Carolina’s most stable defensive defencemen for many years. After Carolina drafted him in the third round of the 2013 NHL Draft out of the University of New Hampshire, Pesce made the permanent move to the pros in 2015. He started the season with the Charlotte Checkers of the AHL but quickly made an appearance with Carolina following injuries. Over his career with Carolina, Pesce has been an excellent top-four defenceman. He saw some time paired with Jaccob Slavin but has been in an almost permanent pair with Brady Skjei since Skjei came to Carolina. While he is more of a defensive defenceman, Pesce can chip in a few points and can also play in transition.
Brett Pesce’s Regular Season
As mentioned above, Pesce played this regular season almost entirely paired with Skjei. They have developed great chemistry as the team’s second pairing and that was on display again this season. They played the most minutes together of any defensive pair for the Hurricanes and were third in the league in that category. In 81 games played, they were second in expected goals and shot attempts for all defensive pairs in the NHL playing at least 150 minutes. They were only behind the Hurricanes’ top pairing of Slavin and Brent Burns. Much like Slavin is to Burns, Pesce provides a very stabilizing element to that pair that allows Skjei to utilize his speed to jump up in the play and engage offensively.
Individually, Pesce broke his career highs in assists and points with 25 and 30 respectively in 82 games. He played the second most minutes of any defenceman on the team and over that span was almost silently effective. The team had a lot of faith in Pesce as he also was utilized in overtime. While he had some big moments for sure including two game-winning goals, his strength really lies in the details of the game and doing the little things right. He had a 90.65 expected goals against but 85 goals against. He also had the second-highest expected goals for all Hurricanes defencemen. This was all while taking the most defensive zone draws on the team. Physically, Pesce put up 37 hits and blocked 110 shots, the most of any Hurricanes defenceman. Pesce also provided a great defensive presence on the penalty kill. His ability to play positionally sound, exert tight gap control, play physically and transition the puck from the defensive zone made him a very effective defenceman this season.
Brett Pesce’s Playoffs
For the playoffs, Brett Pesce again was a stabilizing presence on the back end but he and Skjei did seem to struggle slightly more than in the regular season. Offensively, he matched his previous career best with six points. This included two goals and four assists. He was tied for the team lead in goals by defencemen and second for assists, points, and shots. He led defencemen in individual points percentage (measuring the percentage of goals for that player’s team while that player is on the ice that the player earned a point on) with 60% and rush attempts. Again, defensively he led the way in blocking shots. His 20.42 expected goals against was 4.42 more than his actual goals against of 16. This was one of the biggest differences among Hurricanes defencemen.
The Skjei/Pesce pairing however took a step back in the playoffs. They led all pairs in minutes played but were last in expected goals and expected goals against. Meanwhile, their 14 goals against were more than their 12.5 expected goals against. This could have been for a number of reasons including taking the toughest matchups and a nagging injury to Skjei.
But individually, while his expected goals were fairly low, these statistics back up the eye test for Pesce. He was the same stabilizing defenceman that was able to push the puck and generate offensive chances. Rod Brind’Amour‘s reliance on Pesce showed again as he played high minutes including time on the penalty kill.
The Verdict
This season and the playoffs overall were again very solid for Pesce. He is not going to necessarily jump off the page and wow you but also will do a lot of the heavy lifting, sometimes unnoticeably. His play can allow for the top pairing to sometimes get more favourable matchups. What’s unique about Pesce is that he plays that top-level shutdown role while still being able to produce in some key moments. Did he have mistakes this year? Sure, but Pesce showed consistently that he is a defenceman that can be counted on for tough matchups.
Pesce will be an unrestricted free agent after this upcoming season and Carolina has big decisions to make. As has been stated by management and Pesce, both sides ideally want to work out a deal. Pesce is currently on a team-friendly deal but could be in store for a big pay raise. He also could become one of Carolina’s biggest trade pieces this offseason. Keep an eye on Pesce. But for this Carolina Hurricanes offseason grade, we saw another year of solid play from Pesce with maybe a slight step forward in points.
Grade: B+
Main Photo: Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports
